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Tuesday, April 15, 2008

A heart of wisdom

ANDREW WRITES:

Ps. 90:11-14Who understands the power of Your angerAnd Your fury, according to the fear that is due You?So teach us to number our days,That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.Do return, O LORD; how long will it be?And be sorry for Your servants.O satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness,That we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

One of my biggest struggles right now is fearing the future. It is so easy to worry about tomorrow and all the millions of combinations of things that could happen in the future. I guess before I had cancer I didn't worry that much about the future because I just assumed that I was young and everything would work out just fine. Then when I got cancer last year I was crushed because I realized for the first time my life was completely out of my control (you can read the blog "Sideswiped by the news of cancer" from Jan 2007). After consulting with so many doctors and doing all the most aggressive treatments last year we were so hopeful because the doctors were so hopeful. This year, none of the doctors are as hopeful for a cure to my disease. In some ways this is a blessing in disguise. God has shown us from our experiences last year that you can't trust in doctors or technology to save us. We had one of the best surgeons in the world and did all the additional treatments that we were supposed to do, and the cancer still came back. This time we're left with little confidence that surgery, radiation and chemotherapy will work because my cancer has proven resistant to them. So instead, we are forced to cling to the One who can and wants to heal sicknesses, Jesus Christ. Jesus ministry on earth was full of compassion for the sick and dying and He went around healing people everywhere He went. Here is a great sermon that my brother-in-law, Bob, preached the week before my surgery on healing.

I remember Dr. Steve Lawson preaching on Psalm 90 when I was in college. At the time I really didn't understand it. To a 21 year old college student learning to number my days meant that there were too many to count so why bother. I just assumed that I had a lot of life ahead of me. I didn't really think about the inevitable end, or even the imminent return of Christ. But now that I have had to face the fact that life can end at any time I see life so differently. My days are numbered just as everybody else's is. It is so proud and presumptuous to assume that I am in control of my life, and that I will live for a long time. It is foolish to presume that there will be air for me to breath my next breath. To gain a heart of wisdom is to live today as if it was my last. Jesus commands me not to worry about tomorrow, but to focus on today's trouble in Matthew 6:34. Surely tomorrow will be trouble, but God has not yet provided the grace to handle tomorrow's trouble. So please pray for me that I would not waste any more time worrying about the future, but that I would by God's grace live each individual day to its fullest. Praise God that I am slowly improving in this area but I still have a long way to go. Praise God also that He is healing me even now, as my health is improving and I am getting a little stronger each day.

Here's the update on my treatment:I'm planning on doing radiation and chemotherapy at the same time just as we did last year. The doctors at the University of MN are planning on giving me about the same amount of radiation as last year, another 6000 rads, which will about put me close to double what is considered a safe lifetime limit. I'll also be taking a cocktail of chemotherapy drugs, Taxol, Carboplatin, and maybe Erbitux as well during radiation treatment which is planned to start around April 30th. We have not found any other clinically proven alternative treatments that are less toxic so far (perhaps the Mayo Clinic will say something different when we meet with them next week). If God can create a universe out of nothing, surely he can spare my body from damage due to radiation and chemotherapy. We're going to go through the treatments, but I'm not banking on them healing me. If God chooses, He will heal me. We beg of God to have mercy on me and my family by healing me and restoring my health, that His name might be vindicated as the all powerful God.

Wow! I am in awe of your strength and courage! I,too, know so well from my own chronic illness how we must live each day to its fullest for we may not have tomorrow!! Thankfully, the Great Physician will determine all things for us!! Your in my prayers and continue to keep the faith!

Blogs That Have Encouraged Me through Widowhood

2 Corinthians 5

Our Heavenly Dwelling

1Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, 3because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

6Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7We live by faith, not by sight. 8We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. 10For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

The Ministry of Reconciliation

11Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. 12We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. 13If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.